External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken in New Delhi next week, when the two sides will discuss Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to Washington D.C. later this year.
Blinken is going to be the second top US official to visit India after President Joe Biden’s administration took office in Washington D.C. on January 20 last. Biden’s Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, had visited New Delhi on March 19 and 20.
The US Secretary of State is also likely to call on the Prime Minister, apart from having a meeting with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Jaishankar and Blinken are likely to discuss the resurgence of Taliban in the wake of the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan. They will also discuss the future course of India-US bilateral cooperation to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, sources in New Delhi said.
They will further discuss about ways to step up cooperation in Indo-Pacific and exchange views on China’s continuing belligerence along its disputed boundary with India as well as elsewhere in the region – South China Sea, East China and Taiwan Strait.
A source in New Delhi said that Jaishankar-Blinken meeting would kickstart preparations for the first in-person meeting between Modi and Biden, proposed to be held in Washington D.C.
Biden spoke to Modi over phone twice after taking over as the US President on January 20 last. The two leaders also attended virtual multilateral and plurilateral summits over the past few months. But Modi’s proposed visit to Washington D.C. would create the opportunity for his first in-person meeting with Biden after the change of guard in the White House.
Not only Modi, Biden is also keen to invite Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for a visit to Washington D.C. around the same time so that the four leaders could hold the first in-person summit of the Quad.
The ‘Quad’ is a coalition forged by India, Japan, Australia and the US in 2007 and revived in 2017 – in order to create a bulwark of democratic nations to counter China’s expansionist move and hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region. Modi, Biden, Suga and Morrison had held the first ever summit of the ‘Quad’ through video-calls on March 12, elevating the four-nation coalition to the level of the leaders.